A problem I often find.

[pyrosaw]

Awhile back when I was looking in these forums, I found a topic about how games are not art.(For the record, I believe video games can be, and are, art.) The OP brought up three points as to why games are not art, two of which were common, and as such, commonly slammed down by we the readers. But the third point brought on a bit of thought to me. The third point was that a lot of what we consider pieces of fantastic storytelling in gaming are RPG's with character customization, and all great pieces of storytelling have a character with personalities, faces, quirks, not just some fill in the blank hero-archtype.

So my question is, does that limit the games storytelling, if the main character is just a blank slate? The Fallout series is one of my favorite game franchises, but I don't believe I've ever really related to any of the main characters. Obviously not all main characters need to be extremely interesting individuals to love a story, games like Okami and the Fallout series prove that. But I fear it limits a game to just go with a blank slate. It doesn't give the character anything to relate with, and that limits player interaction in my opinion. What are your thoughts?

(Sorry if it's a wall of text.)

 

[Rawne1980]

I avoid the "art" debate like it has a very bad dose of genital warts however I just wanted to chime in on something....

You don't "relate" to the main character of games like Fallout 3, NV or The Elder Scrolls.

The basic idea is you fill in the blanks yourself. It's not a character to relate to it's a character to project yourself into.

That's why it is a blank slate. They have no personality, you give them one.

That's how I see it anyway.

 

[Kahunaburger]

Games can also provide a medium for player-created stories, which a well-written blank slate protagonist can be very effective for. Also, not all games need to tell complex stories for the same reason that not all music needs to tell complex stories.

 

[Daystar Clarion]

Games like Fallout and Skyrim are great if you want to create your own character.

New Vegas was especially brilliant at this.

Your Courier has a past, you can fill in some of those blanks yourself through dialogue, and the whole Ulysses story line was awesome.

The attachment I have to the characters I make, rather than the characters I simply play, is unlike any other.

For instance, my New Vegas character, Faye, is a wasteland samurai. She's honourable, never steals, always tries to help those in need but isn't beyond cutting people to ribbons with her katana or filling them with holes from her revolver.

Nothing is sweeter than destroying the Legion, singlehandedly, with a gender they consider inferior

 

[Scrustle]

That's rubbish. Plenty of other media have characters who are supposed to be a blank "everyman" so we can project ourselves on to them and identify with them. Perhaps it's used too often, but it doesn't mean it's not art at all.

And this kind of thing surely plays in to the hands of video games as art because it aids the unique appeal of video games, that they are interactive. They put you in the story. Allowing you to create your own character from a blank slate is a great way to do that.

I agree that this method can be relied on too much and doesn't work with all types of games, but I don't see any reason why it means can't be art. That's silly.

 

[IrritatingSquirrel]

'Games are art' Is a ridiculously difficult claim to deal with.
Define 'Art' first. That makes all the difference to the argument, since art seems to be a pretty equivocal word, which is a dangerous place to start an argument.

But in regard to your exact query, I always relate/care, if not with the character and the motives, but with the actions I take themselves, a tangible sense of success/failure/progress/insert similar thing here

 

[pyrosaw]

That's rubbish. Plenty of other media have characters who are supposed to be a blank "everyman" so we can project ourselves on to them and identify with them. Perhaps it's used too often, but it doesn't mean it's not art at all.

And this kind of thing surely plays in to the hands of video games as art because it aids the unique appeal of video games, that they are interactive. They put you in the story. Allowing you to create your own character from a blank slate is a great way to do that.

I agree that this method can be relied on too much and doesn't work with all types of games, but I don't see any reason why it means can't be art. That's silly.

Well I was just wondering. If a game is story-heavy, I always figured they needed to create a character. But I never considered the interactivity of video games though.

 

[pyrosaw]

'Games are art' Is a ridiculously difficult claim to deal with.
Define 'Art' first. That makes all the difference to the argument, since art seems to be a pretty equivocal word, which is a dangerous place to start an argument.

But in regard to your exact query, I always relate/care, if not with the character and the motives, but with the actions I take themselves, a tangible sense of success/failure/progress/insert similar thing here

Well, for me, my definition of art is something that makes me feel a certain emotion besides boredom. For me, this is easily done by a character. For example, pity for John Marston in Red Dead Redemption, Understanding for Raz in Psychonauts, anger for Kratos in God of War and so on and so on.

 

[StriderShinryu]

Many pieces of art don't realy have a defined protagonist. Most sculpture or paintings don't have a defined character at all and, in actuality, the mental interaction between the viewer and the object is what defines the artistic connection. Take the familiar example of the Mona Lisa. Sure we know what she looks like in the painting but that's really all we know, and the viewing and thinking about certain aspects of it is what gives the painting it's real artistic depth. Thinking about things like the technique used, the materials used, who she is, why she is smiling, is her appearance more true to life or more artistic impression, why Da Vinci painted her at all, etc.

Hmm.. what other medium out there is defined by a viewer immersing themselvse in a world or vision created by someone else where the interaction between the two defines the experience.. it's on the tip of my tongue.. Hmmm...

 

[Smooth Operator]

So my question is, does that limit the games storytelling, if the main character is just a blank slate? The Fallout series is one of my favorite game franchises, but I don't believe I've ever really related to any of the main characters.

They are a blank slate... what on earth possessed you people to imagine there is something to relate to, that "characters" is your porthole into the game nothing more, through that you relate to others not yourself, I don't even...
I'm starting to imagine most people play games with pants on their heads, which would explain a whole lot about the current state of gaming.

 

[Vault101]

For instance, my New Vegas character, Faye, is a wasteland samurai. She's honourable, never steals, always tries to help those in need but isn't beyond cutting people to ribbons with her katana or filling them with holes from her revolver.

Nothing is sweeter than destroying the Legion, singlehandedly, with a gender they consider inferior

my Courer forgot her name

she tended to be a smartass jerk at times (whats that night stalker? dont like being stared at? *stares* "s-s-s-soory I didn't u-u-undertant what you m-ment by sp-sp-speech impediment") ,

had a bit of a temper...was also a little reckless and/or insane perhaps due to brain damage(run into the boomer artillery feild? OK! go for a dive in an abandoned Vault? HELLS YEAH!) the whole series of events kind of baffled her, so she just went along for the ride

but underneith that she was a good person with strong set of morals (mostly), she hated the legion from the get go and soon realised that shit was going to get serieus..she had to destroy the legion

anyway jsut goes to show how great it can be to roleplay..my fallout 3 charachter was very different

but I think it requires a setting/story that captures your imagination, hence why syrim/oblivion fall flat for me

but as jim said in his video, blank slate or defined charachter you shouldnt apply rules to art

 

[IrritatingSquirrel]

'Games are art' Is a ridiculously difficult claim to deal with.
Define 'Art' first. That makes all the difference to the argument, since art seems to be a pretty equivocal word, which is a dangerous place to start an argument.

the deinition of art is
1. The expression or application of human creative skill and imagination
2. Works produced by such skill and imagination.

all it takes is a 5 second google search, the only reason we have the whole "are games art" debate is because the people debating know very little about video games or art or both


OT: if you are the main character the emphasis is often on the other main characters in the story and how you the blank slate form an opinion of them and how your relationship with that character, it can be done poorly and break a game (skyrim) or be done excellently and make a game (the game that will go un-named on these forums but rhymes with hass heffect), it is a powerful tool to be used and a very good way of expressing art

A work of engineering requires skill and imagination, is that art? It's a weird sort of word, art.

 

[More Fun To Compute]

Apart from accidentally reading another boring "art" thread what sort of problem are you finding often? You don't like games without a lead character with a strong personality because character interaction is what you mostly care about in games? My answer is to only play games with a lot of banter or stop worrying.

 

[Squidbulb]

Games with customizable characters are kind of like choose-your-own adventure books, which no matter how good, could never be considered art.

 

[Ulquiorra4sama]

'Games are art' Is a ridiculously difficult claim to deal with.
Define 'Art' first. That makes all the difference to the argument, since art seems to be a pretty equivocal word, which is a dangerous place to start an argument.

the deinition of art is
1. The expression or application of human creative skill and imagination
2. Works produced by such skill and imagination.

all it takes is a 5 second google search, the only reason we have the whole "are games art" debate is because the people debating know very little about video games or art or both


OT: if you are the main character the emphasis is often on the other main characters in the story and how you the blank slate form an opinion of them and how your relationship with that character, it can be done poorly and break a game (skyrim) or be done excellently and make a game (the game that will go un-named on these forums but rhymes with hass heffect), it is a powerful tool to be used and a very good way of expressing art

A work of engineering requires skill and imagination, is that art? It's a weird sort of word, art.

Technically it is and to some people very much so, but it's really an art branch only for those especially interested - much like dadaism or futurism

OT: For some reason i keep thinking of Saints Row when i read the first post. What those games did was let you create voice, body language and appearence of a character who already had their motivation and personality down.

I do agree however that games with "premade" characters tend to be more engaging, but as has been mentioned the issue with Fallout and The Elder Scrolls is that you're not supposed to relate to the character (in the traditional sense) or worry about their motivation because their motivation is your motivation and so on.

 

[DoPo]

So my question is, does that limit the games storytelling, if the main character is just a blank slate?

No, it doesn't. There is still storytelling happening, isn't there? How exactly is the story limited by that? If I tell you a story in which one of the characters is only mentioned twice, and that's it, does that make the story less of a story because I didn't go into their full background and motivations? Since when using your imagination to fill in the blanks left by the author is actively working against the medium as a whole?

 

[Deadyawn]

In games like that the PC is just a vehicle that allows the player to experience the world and its characters. Just because the PC isn't well characterized doesn't mean that the storytelling is weaker or limited. In many cases it strengthens both these aspects as it facilitates a greater range of choices for the player to select from, shaping the world as they see fit.